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Advanced Concepts in the Theory of Magic/Introduction
Chapter 1: Introduction Section 1.1 | The Nature of the Project The principle concern of the discipline of Magical Theory is to analyse and describe the nature of magic. Its aims is to discover the basic rules by which this powerful and mysterious force works. Magical Theory begins with simple observations and moves into asking deeper questions. At the most practical level, it is essential for a witch or wizard to learn the basic factors which enable her to cast a spell successfully. To take a simple example, in order to successfully perform the most basic Charm or Transfiguration, it is necessary for a wizard to understand (i) the roles of incantation and wand movement, (ii) to identify the thought (or state of mind) that the spell requires, and (iii) to focus their attentions on the person or object which the spell is intended to affect. Understanding the practical importance of thought, incantation, and wand-movement are basic examples of Magical Theory. The project contained within this book is more complex and more ambitious than this. The reason why Magical Theory is a discipline worth pursuing is that it goes beyond the identification of the everyday aspects of magical practice and aims to describe the principles by which these aspects work at their most fundamental level. As a case in point, let us consider the basic observation that eye-contact between the wizard and the object is necessary when performing a charm which is intended to affect one object in particular - the Levitation Charm does not work if one does not maintain eye contact with the object that one wishes to levitate. The Magical Theoretician can describe this rule and formulate it by calling it, for example, 'The Practitioner-Object Eye-Contact Condition'. This rule would indeed be a correct analysis of a crucial aspect of spell-casting and it can be easily learned by any student of magic wishing to perform a spell successfully. However, for anybody with a deeply inquisitive mind, this is clearly a rather unsatisfying answer. Trully enough, we have described a rule of magic, but it does not tell us anything very deep or very insightful. The aim of Magical Theory is not just to ask 'How' these rules work but also to as 'Why' they work at all? We begins to ask questions such as What is Magic? Why does it behave in this way? Why can I control it and use it in this way? ''The basic aim of the subject might be summed up simply by the following statement: If we take this statement to be our basic starting point, the question which naturally arises might be - '''What do we mean by Fundamental Magical Law?'.This question was notably raised by Herr Waffling in his pioneering textbook Magical Theory. His aim was to identify a set of statements that captured the general nature of magic and its practical implications. The statements captured rules which ground all magic and which no form of magic could ever contradict. Waffling's best known and perhaps most profound Fundamental Law concerns the nature of the Soul. He notes the following: : "Tamper with the deepest mysteries — the source of life, the essence of self — only if prepared for consequences of the most extreme and dangerous kind." Consider how the First Law is formulated by Waffling. The statement takes the form of a categorical imperative. It is an inevitable that tampering with the soul will cause grave consequences for those who attempt it. There is no qualification, no specifics about the circumstances under which it might be broken, no discussion of how it relates to any particular type of magic. Fundamental Magical Law is the basic set of rules from which all other laws of magic follow. We can presume Fundamental Magical Law to apply in every area of magic since it is prior to all magic and all magic is reducible to it. What we mean by Fundamental Magical Law is therefore the set of rules which underlie more practical rules about the workings of magic. Fundamental Magical Law cannot itself be broken down further into additional rules. The aim of formulating Fundamental Magical Law is to identify the basic rules from which everything else logical follows. Once this has been understood, the next question to arise is this - How do we discover Fundamental Magical Law? This is the task that this book sets out to achieve. We will begin by observing the rules magic follows and then aim to reduce these rules to the more basic (or fundamental) rules which underlie them all. If this task is completed successfully then it should be clear both (i) How Fundamental Magical Law is evidenced by the practical rules we follow in everyday use of magic, and (ii) How Fundamental Magic Law lays the groundwork for understanding the reasons for every rule that magic follows. Section 1.2 | Methodological Preliminaries There are three aspects to the method of investigation used in Magical Theory. We can investigate the rules of magic from (i) a ''Practical, ''(ii) ''a Scientific, or ''(iii) ''a Philosophical perspective. Section 1.2.1. Practical Investigations Theorizing about the nature of magic begins by observing its practical possibilities. Put more simply, when we performing a piece of magic was ask ourselves, '''Why is it that I was successful in performing this magic?'. We can go further and ask ourselves: * What would have happen if I have done X instead of Y when I performed that spell?'' * Would the spell have still been successful in a different situation?'. * And perhaps even further ... 'What can I practically do with magic and what can I not do?'. * And then further still ... '''What is magic? A crucial point worth raising is that magical theory should not aim to provide an analysis of magic which is merely theoretical and totally abstract from practical concern. That is to say that the description of magic should, at some level at least, conform to our intuitive observations about the way magic operates when we cast spells and thereby allow us to gain a greater understanding of what it is that we are doing when practicing magic. Just as Magical Theory can be too simplistic, so too can it be overly abstract and unwarranted speculative. Simply put, when we try to formulate a fundamental magic law, we should be asking ourselves 'How does this explain how magic works on a day-to-day basis?' The answer to this question might not always be obvious, particularly in the more abstract questions that we will consider late in this book. However, if the law either i) explains nothing about the practical workings of magic, or ii) explains it in a way which makes no sense to our practical experience, then we should reconsider the law if not dismiss it altogether. Section 1.2.2. Scientific Investigations Investigating magic from a scientific standpoint is often considered to be the crucial purpose of Magical Theory. Exactly what counts as science and scientific method has troubled many prominent muggle thinkers, forming a discipline known as the philosophy of science. Although it isn't possible to consider some of the complexities of defining science in this book, we can be satisfied that a reasonable definition of science sufficient for our purposes would be something along the following lines: Science is the systematic investigation and explanation of the nature of the world through testable observation and experimentation. Muggle scientists aim to formulate scientific laws which explain some aspect of the world in a way which is is logically consistent, explanatory adequate, and justified by observable evidence. Again, it would be far beyond the scope of this book to consider all ''aspects of the debates about the nature of scientific laws that have arisen within muggle science and philosophy. However, there is some broad agreement among both that scientific laws follow a number of basic principles: * '''Universality: '''Scientific laws apply consistently in each relevant case provided that all variables are the same. ** For example, the scientific law 'salts dissolves in water' (false) could only be true is ''all ''salts dissolve in water ''under the same conditions. ** Note that it is reasonable and expected for the conditions applying to a law to be complicated. This is not a problem for universality but sometimes a law will need to be formulated to include a relevant qualification. For example, 'Under condition A, object X will behave in this ''way - Under condition B, object X will behave in ''that ''way.' * '''Projectability: '''Scientific laws apply to ''all further examples at all further times, thereby allowing the laws to be used to make predictions about new relevant cases. ** For example, the scientific law 'all emeralds are green' (true) does not randomly change. If I know that 'all emeralds are green' and I know an object X is an emerald, I know that i) X is green and ii) it will not randomly change to blue at some point in the future. I can therefore make predictions about emeralds in virtue of knowing this law. ** More simply put, scientific laws allow us to project ''from '''observed examples' to unobserved examples in order to give us predictable knowledge. * '''Falsifiability: '''Scientific laws have to be capable of being proven false by relevant evidence. ** For example, the scientific law 'all swans are white' (false) can be proven false by showing that a black swan exists. However, the law 'All dragons dance the hornpipe but only when they are completely unobserved in any way' is not scientific since there is no way that anybody could falsify it. Whilst discussing the virtues of the scientific approach to magical theory, we should also take note of its limitations. As this book shall discuss, many aspects of magic cannot be easily described according to provable, universal, unambiguous laws of a scientific nature. Wandlore, the study of the properties and behavior of wands (see Chapter 4 for a full discussion) is a prime example, particularly when we consider the laws of selection and allegiance which govern the relationship between a wand and its master. These allegiance laws (again, discussed in Chapter 4) include a range of imperfect influences such as the properties of the wand, the character of the owner, the wand's use and so forth, none of which is absolute or totally determinate of wand allegiance. Researchers of wandlore therefore prefer to refer to these as ''Subtle Laws of Wands ''to distinguish them from the more concrete and objective (i.e. scientific) laws governing other aspects of magic. Magical theorists might aim to produce as many scientific laws to describe magic as possible but we shouldn't be surprised that magic, a powerful and mysterious force, alludes this approach in many ways. Section 1.2.3. Philosophical Investigations Assumptions